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Growth Online		 Stinginess, Miserliness
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by Roy Posner and MSS

 

Stinginess's Detriment to Truth
Stinginess is a perfect vehicle to preserve ways of life that are directly detrimental to TRUTH. Such people always swear by Truth. At crucial times, they have an urge to do the very opposite. (MSS)

Definition (of the Opposites) of Generosity & Meanness
 Meanness is an attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is meanness. (MSS, somewhat modified)

Thoughts on Stinginess
 Stinginess is the acute possessiveness of the physical. Expansive giving of the extravagant is its opposite without substance. The stingy man becoming expansive, or the extravagant man developing an extraordinary capacity to earn is not the real solution. One can give his self, not his possessions. One cannot possess money or property, but can possess values or Love. Man loves to be oblivious of one who gave him his very life dying, but equally loves dying to know the success of those who betrayed him.

Hard-earned money will be protected by stinginess. Rarely it becomes generosity. When it does so, it is for its own selfish reasons.

When hard labour successfully organises itself into higher productivity unaccompanied by higher spiritual values, stinginess is born.  

Ego endeavours to go beyond Time and Mind.   Stinginess tries to excel Time by its intensity.  

Stinginess receives grace as scarcity. (MSS)

 

The Unregenerate Vital Nature that Does Not Want to Pay
Love give. It cannot take. It can only give. Maybe, "Man takes, he can only take and he cannot give" is an uncharitable statement to make about mankind. At least in our own personal experience, we would have seen one example of such a person. Having read the words of Sri Aurobindo about the unregenerate vital not wanting to be under an obligation, I began to collect evidences for it from my readings of history and literature.

During the course of my research, I came across precious examples in life and in literature for another principle with which this article opens. My main focus was how much I am qualified under these rules, how unregenerate my vital is and how unwilling I have been to pay where payment was due. It was instructive.

Someone suffering an incurable disease came across another person in whom she developed a hope. She offered half her property to him. In half an hour of conversation, her hopes rose and she offered all her property. She was cured. Rather, she was transformed from the ghost she was to a girl of good looks. Her offer was no longer in the air.

A man entrusted a friend with all his money. The friend invested it and raised it to a value of 30 times in 18 months. It never occurred to the man that the friend could also be given a trifle out of the good fortune he had created. Two rich men bought a large coffee estate together. One man paid his share. The other man did not.

The buyer did not ask for the payment. The seller did not pay, nor did he give a receipt for the money for five years. It is inconceivable, but I was a witness to it. I can write here up to 15 such instances directly from the events I experienced or was a witness to. Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories and 4 novels with Sherlock Holmes as the hero. It seems he made an experiment of his work to study this principle in life. Holmes never asks for payment. No one paid him, but everyone, before the work was over, copiously promised to pay.

A Lord came representing the throne and assured his payment, but never paid. A gold king asked him to burn money if necessary, but never paid. A poor girl offered to pay if she got her property. She got it but never paid. The police took Holmes' help but would not even pay his expenses.

An Austrian King and a Duke from whom Holmes demanded payment paid. A banker lost a crown and offered to pay its whole value, but never mentioned payment on its recovery. Sri Aurobindo says it never occurs to Man that a payment is due for service rendered or goods received. Love that is incapable of taking expresses through the mind or body. The body is physical and is possessive.

Even when the body expresses DIVINE LOVE that cannot take, in the beginning it wants to take for a period before it starts giving. If you see someone coming forward to pay AFTER the work is over and without being asked, you can be sure he is NOT physical. Yoga is to move from Mind to Supermind. There is the necessity for some of us to move from the vital to the mental. A few people may find themselves in the physical. They too can move. The power of the Force is wherever you are, you will be moved to the top, as in politics when the party wants, a person is moved from anywhere to everywhere. Man does not want to pay is a human reality. (MSS)

Untitled
The expansive, generous self-giving of a vain poor man turns into cautious self-preservation and later miserliness when affluence comes to him. (MSS)

Also See Entries on Generosity, etc.
 

 

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